timid, perhaps, to meet a sneer or an overbearing rebuff, by advancing an opinion contrary to that which has been generally adopted; or, they may be too indifferent to national benefits to give themselves the least trouble to improve the public mind. Thus, error and prejudice make daily encroachments on a nation's judgment, and lead multitudes astray; the majority of mankind not having the opportunity of convincing themselves by referring to chapter and verse. And many, even admitting they had, have not the industry to trace out truths, and draw conclusions from clear and impartial accounts; but take all upon common report, and give into custom without a reflection, be the blunder never so palpable.

It may be asked-who's to decide when doctors disagree? or how it is to be known which are clear and impartial accounts?

To these inquiries it may be answered, by proving them, as we do all other accounts; which may easily be done by men of experience and research, though a Goldsmith or a Lyttleton be compromised in the attempt. When it is considered in what manner the former wrote his historical epistles, it may not, perhaps, seem strange that inadvertencies should appear among his literary performances; and yet this historian is generally put into the hands of young people. It is said of this great genius, that after dedicating the early part of the day in reading Gibbon's Histories, he usually rode out for a couple of hours

in the grave shall awake, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and they that are alive shall be changed, and caught to meet the Lord in the air. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump."

Hence we learn that, when Almighty God thinks fit to gather to Himself man's spirit, the disunion of soul and body must take place. Our removal from this transitory life to a state of eternity, cannot be effected without such a change; and yet, of all the evils that oppress mankind, there is not one we seem to dread so much as death. Whether considered as the total dissolution of the body, when the senses are all destroyed, and the faculties of the mind cease to perform their accustomed duties;-whether we apprehend the pain and agony that may attend our dying moments, when the parting stroke is given which separates soul and body;-or whether we behold ourselves on the brink of eternity, and on the very verge of passing into the immediate presence of Divine Majesty, it is awful and appalling. Still, it is not so terrible, perhaps, as man imagines; there is an all-sufficient antidote against the fears, so natural to humanity, of death and dying. Did we reflect properly on these important subjects, our minds would, in all probability, be delivered from a variety of distressing apprehensions. "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the

breath of life, and man became a living soul;" the body was animated, as the soul was infused into it. When all God's purposes, for which He brought us into being, are accomplished in us, he removes us out of this world by death. The breath He breathed into our nostrils departs out of our body-the pulse ceases to beat -the circulation of the blood stops-the intellectual faculties perish, and the body returns to the elements out of which it was formed.

We look on sickness, disease, and old age, as prognostics of death. But, distinct from these, "There is a time to die;"-God appoints the hour, and we must obey the call. It is sometimes preceded by a fit of sickness-sometimes comes suddenly upon usand, sometimes by slow degrees advances. Come when it will, if we learn to familiarize our thoughts with it, by the consolations which revealed religion offers, we shall meet it with Christian fortitude, and resign our breath to Him who gave it, without dismay. Many have died without a sigh or groan; may we not do the same? Death is produced by certain physical causes, and may not be so terrible when near at hand, as when viewed at a distance. Of this we have many proofs. Then why should we perplex ourselves, or anticipate those sufferings which we may never be doomed to experience?

The Scriptures speak of death as a sleep: may we not reasonably suppose then, that all fears concerning it are groundless? It is evident that the

1

an hundred years prior to the reign of Henry the VIII. Ancient records will shew, to those who have the inclination as well as the opportunity of referring to them, several charters granted to the University of Oxford, long before Pope Leo, or his sanguinary friend was in being, says Chamberlayne: they bear testimony of a fact so little known, even among the literati of the present age. Would modern historians so far adopt the Pythagorian system, as to dive well into doubtful points before they assert them for truths; or would individuals, who have the opportunity of referring to ancient records, correct such palpable errors, which, through carelessness, idleness, and inattention; or perhaps, the fanciful imagination of an inventive genius, have crept into history; the public mind would not be thus misled.

With respect to the title in question, it seems that it must have laid dormant until it was forgotten. Why it was ever dropped by Kings of England, when Christianity was firmly established in the nation, some able student, probably, may feel inclined to search out, when convinced of the incorrectness of the statement. For certain it is, that when his Popeship bestowed this mark of honor on his worthy colleague, it was but the renovation of an ancient title*.

* See Chamberlayne's Chronicle.—Duke Humphrey's Titles, when Protector, during the minority of his Nephew Henry VI.—the ancient records of certain charters granted to the University of Oxford, &c. &c.

ALTHOUGH it is generally expected that the man whose education and studies enable him to discover the fallacy of subtile argument, and to clear up doubtful points, should exert his talents for the general good, as well as for the information of his fellow-man; still it so often happens that individual industry, in the public service, meets with little or no encouragement, unless supported by some secret influence, or the celebrity of a name; that patriotic sensations become morbid, and at length, for the want of a stimulating power, sink into a state of total inaction. Thus the most praise-worthy exertions are, sometimes, impeded, and the most useful suggestions lost to the world, whether of a literary, scientific, or of a moral

nature.

The refutation of historical errors, would, no doubt, be hailed as a work of infinite interest by the literati of the present age; were a Scott, a